This Man Here
by Something Greater
Summary: Jacky and Clarissa have a late night talk, and Clarissa sets her sights on someone most unexpected.


I stare really hard at my reflection, whip a few strands of hair out of my face, and then I scunch up my nose and stare really hard again. And wouldn't you know, that mirror stares right back.

"You're not ugly, Jacky," says a voice from my bed, and I hear the smirk in Clarissa's voice as she continues, "Incredibly plain, ill-mannered, an out-and-out whore in the making and with no scruples to boot..." She pauses. "But that boy of yours seems to think you're okay. I disagree, but there's no need to be worrying yourself over that if you already have someone who loves you."

By "that boy of yours" she means Jaimy, and now I do not mind her talking of him. It bring a bit of solace to me as Clarissa and I stay locked in our room, the rain coming down real hard outside and the bar being full of rowdy young men downstairs. We must stay put, and we both know that even if we don't have to be entirely happy about it.

Clarissa is already growing a bit fidgety, and she crossed her legs several times before she says, "What I want to know is of all the other boys, and how you got them to fall for you when you look as you do."

"As I do...as I do..." I say, moving a bit of hair behind one ear. "Maybe it's because I'm mostly nice and mostly good, I really don't know, but I do know that even though we are stuck here we have better things to talk about than boys. Come, tell me a story of when you were a little girl, Clarissa. I've always wondered how you turned out like you are."

Clarissa shakes her head and draws her knees to her chest, and I see her gaze already hardening at me. "I turned out just fine and the how and why of it do not matter. Now Jacky Faber, you will answer my question and my question is this"--she frowns and lets out a sharp breath of air--"am I ugly?"

I stop staring in the mirror, my hands frozen, and for a long time the only thing I can hear is the pounding of rain against the window. Both of us are deathly silent until I finally turn around, plant one hand on my hip and, using my best Cheer 'Em Up saucy sailor attitude, I say, "Now you come on Clarissa. I know you did not just ask me that question, because you of all people could get any man you wish, whether it be a fine man in uniform or a dirty one who likes to roll in the mud with pigs. Nettles preferred you twice over, if that'll tell you anything."

"As, he preferred me to you that's not saying much." Clarissa cuts her eyes up real sharp at me, but then they flick over to just above my shoulder, and I see she's wearing the Look. Or a very dulled down version of the it, because it's hard to do the Look after you've traveled in rain and snow and tornados to the other side of the United States, you're soaking wet, and now you're trapped in a tavern with your ex-rival somewhere between Louissiana and Mississippi.

"I couldn't get just any man I wanted, Jacky Faber," she says, all small and low. "Because you took the man I was to marry from me. You took my Randall Trevelyne."

So I go and sit on the bed on her other side and I put one arm around her stiff shoulders and this time I try to be nice, I really do, and _let's just see how this will work out_. "Do you really mean you wanted him, Miss Clarissa Worthington Howe of the Virginia Howes? Miss Clarissa who can marry any man from this side of the globe and the other? Miss Clarissa, with her head held high? You mean to say you wanted a common fellow like Mr. Trevelyne, hmmm? Is that the truth?"

She scoots away from me then and slides over to the end of the bed, where I have thrown my sea bag. She's thinking, I can see she's thinking real hard as she idly digs through my things, but I don't take the bag away from her because she's going over my words in her head. And she knows I'm right.

_You were feeling unwanted because I took your Mr. Trevelyne away from you, but couldn't you see he only liked me because I was free and easy? But I've sparked a bit of confidence back in you. You've been through hell on the _Bloodhound_ like the rest of us, Clarissa, but it was you what got us out of it and it's you that's going to grow up to be pretty and clever, not plain like me. You see that now, and you will be happier because of it._

"I am Clarissa Worthington Howe," she says suddenly, her voice clear and loud. She still has one arm inside my sea bag and is staring down into it with a smirk on her face and it's all I can do not to snatch all my things away from her. Whatever she's thinking ain't good now.

"I am Clarissa Worthington Howe," she says again, and pulls out a picture I'd sketched after seeing some of my old _Wolverine _mates. "And whoever this man is here, I will claim him."

I gulp. "Which man?"

"The one in this here picture."

I don't say anything for a long, long time, and Clarissa doesn't say anything either, just stares at the picture like a lion might stare at its prey before eating it, and that makes me scared, it does. Because scratched into the back of the picture is the man's name. And it reads:

Joseph Jared


End file.
